In the ongoing debate about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the workforce, a critical yet often overlooked aspect is the growing divide between those who use AI as a tool to enhance their skills and those who are subject to AI-powered surveillance and control. While some workers are benefiting from AI as a copilot, supporting human judgment and streamlining routine tasks, others are finding themselves managed by AI systems that monitor and grade every action, leading to increased stress and a loss of autonomy. This divide is not just a technical issue but a social, political, and moral one, with employers using AI to empower some while subjecting others to more intensive oversight.
One of the most striking examples of this divide is the use of 'bossware' technology in the UK, where a third of employers are already monitoring workers' online activity. This surveillance is not limited to the UK; it is a global trend, with companies like Amazon and Meta tracking employee keystrokes, mouse movements, and clicks to train their AI models. The result is a widening gap in skills, autonomy, and well-being between those who get to work with AI and those who are managed by it.
This divide is not just about job loss or increased productivity; it is about the very nature of work itself. Work is not just about income; it is also about dignity, trust, and control. AI-managed workplaces are intensifying the pressures of work, with every click, step, call, or pause being measured and graded by a system that workers cannot fully see or challenge. This leads to stress and a loss of autonomy, particularly for those in low-wage jobs like warehousing, retail, hospitality, logistics, customer service, and the gig economy.
The question of whether AI is 'good' or 'bad' is pointlessly crude. The truth is more nuanced. Employers are using AI to empower some workers while subjecting others to more intensive, inhumane forms of oversight. This is creating new opportunities at the top of the labor market while tightening control lower down. The methods of algorithmic management and surveillance being honed in warehouses, delivery vans, and gig work platforms are likely to spread to corporate headquarters, hospitals, and schools.
This raises a deeper question: how can we ensure that the benefits of AI are shared fairly across the workforce? The answer lies in meaningful training, not just in using digital tools but in building the wider skills that matter in an AI age, such as judgment, communication, and critical thinking. We also need basic democratic principles in the workplace, with systems that affect pay and performance being transparent and contestable. Most of all, workers need a voice in how these technologies are introduced, and research has shown that involving workers in the process improves their job quality and allows employers to integrate AI more effectively.
The choice about how AI will reshape work is not being made in Silicon Valley boardrooms or summit speeches; it is being made right now, workplace by workplace, across Britain and around the world. Unless we pay attention, the new AI divide will become one more inequality that arrives quietly, embeds itself deeply, and is only recognized once it is already everywhere. This is not just a technical problem; it is a social, political, and moral one, and it requires a collective effort to address it.
